Talk:Variant Weapon Focus (3.5e Feat)
Favor My first favor. → Rith (talk) :Ummm... have you actually done the math? It doesn't go to the rogue balance point--at all. +1 to attack is an increase of ~10-25% damage, depending on the AC of the enemy and your damage. Now imagine how much +5 would do, and calculate in that it has the potential to break the RNG on top of that. It balances well at the wizard level, since at that point you're not really caring about the RNG, but not so much at the rogue level. I know the feat "looks cool", but people need to actually do the math IMO --Ghostwheel 02:35, November 15, 2009 (UTC) ::I had not done the math. Extrapolating from your analysis, I've found that the iterative progression is the only factor in the percent change. Average damage doesn't affect the percent change, nor does the attack bonus (as long as the enemy's AC is still the highest pre-feat bonus +10). Overall, the results are this: at +1, the increase in damage is 16.67%; at +2, 33.33%; at +3, 50%; at +4, 66.67%; at +5, a shocking 83.33%. So, while the core feat's +1 bonus might not be worth it, increasing it to a peak +5 is far above a rogue balance. --DanielDraco 05:17, November 15, 2009 (UTC) :::Son of a wiggly toadbottom, for those not watching the Eiji Show Eiji finally got tired of listening the debate over this so he's finally putting his two cents in on this. The short story- I'm with the "rogue level" group. And now the long story why. And why? :::First level, all you're getting is a +1. That's the same as Weapon Focus, hardly overpowered. Whatever damage increase it gives is pidly, Weapon Focus standard is fighter level. :::Ok, move on, mid levels, +2, +3ish. The bonus is bigger. That's good, there's apparently even more average damage, but we're still not too vastly stronger than the fighter. This whole arguement of almost doubling (83%) your damage is at +5, so let's look at that. That's at level 17. At that level, meteors are flying and people are pretending their superman. The monsters do fine. They have DR, resistances, etc. More importantly they have the hp for it. Their Con score grows and it grows very fast the more HD you have. What was it... each level is supposed to be a doubling of strength? I forget... anyway, the point I reach is at low levels, the +1 is small and comparable to other feats, and at high levels, it's managed to keep pace with the inevitable explosion in enemy strength and hp. It is the main reason the standard Weapon Focus fails to deliver, it's fine for low level but becomes irrelevent at higher levels, where you're still only hitting 5% better than normal, when you NEED to bit hitting much more often to produce the damage output you need to keep up with the others. :::I'm not going to get into the whole drama of the bronze star business, I don't care, it's fluff and glitter and means a lot of nothing. Anyway, 2 cents, plus tax. -- Eiji Hyrule 07:07, November 15, 2009 (UTC) ::::Also, that extrapolation fails. Badly. Ghost's numbers are for a single case and a +1 bonus and have no bearing here except for the exact condition that they represent (which I feel is overstated for that matter). If you could pick an average damage boost, which you can't as it's a game dependent parameter, it wouldn't mean what you think it means against the people you think it means anything against. If you want real numbers you need to make a graph (because you don't have static numbers), and look at the ACs of people where you get the bigger bonuses, consider how much missing you're going to be doing at that level anyway, and then decide if you still think it wizard level or not. - TarkisFlux 07:25, November 15, 2009 (UTC) :::::Hey, look, a graph: link. - TarkisFlux 08:31, November 15, 2009 (UTC) :::::: Very, very awesome. Being able to see it really makes a difference--I think I'm firmly on the "weapon focus as-is is fighter/rogue and the variant is wizard level" side though, since I think the increase in damage is fine and you don't usually have to roll a 1-2 or 19-20 to hit things (since that often leads to magical tea party). --Ghostwheel 08:34, November 15, 2009 (UTC) :::::::Defiant to the end, eh Ghosty? Well, I'm not actually gonna say this in all seriousness, cause people will just look at me and say 'yeah right', but I knew there was a flaw in the arguements against this feat. → Rith (talk) 09:47, November 15, 2009 (UTC)